dreaming of eden
by Kiria Ithica
Summary: Madoka/Mami. This place is as timeless as it is endless, and Mami knows she should be afraid but she isn't, because she could never be afraid with Madoka holding her hand. (How do you fight something that gives you your deepest desire and uses it to twist you around its little finger?)


**dreaming of eden**

**by Kiria Ithica**

**characters: **Mami, Madoka

**summary: **Madoka/Mami. This place is as timeless as it is endless, and Mami knows she should be afraid but she isn't, because she could never be afraid with Madoka holding her hand. (How do you fight something that gives you your deepest desire and uses it to twist you around its little finger?)

**notes: **Dedicated to my good friend San-Nyan, who has been my friend since I was twelve and has since stopped writing but will never cease to be my idol. I love you, dude!

.

**one**

Madoka rises into the bleak gray sky, her pink soul gem clear and radiant at her throat and her dress fluttering at her thighs as she raises the bow high, aims it at Walpurgis Nacht.

And Mami, clutching at her suddenly healing stomach, feeling the long, jagged slash across her midsection close up and knit back together as if there was never any mortal wound there at all, watches in a mixture of awe and dread.

Awe, because Madoka is _beautiful _and _powerful _and the most wondrous thing Mami's ever seen. But dread, too, because Madoka's put herself right in the firing range of the monstrous witch that nearly killed Mami, that _did_ kill Sayaka and Kyouko. Mami is sure that if she searches the rubble, she'll find Sayaka's broken body somewhere. Kyouko's, she won't find, because the rubble Kyouko's body fell into was blown up along with the horde of familiars that killed her by Homura and her explosives.

There hadn't been a shred of guilt in Homura's expression at the time, and Mami had hated her even more than she already did for it. Because that hadn't been some meaningless corpse, that had been _Kyouko,_ who had been their friend, whose smile had had sharp fangs and whose red hair had whipped around her waist in the wind.

But when a familiar carved a long, gaping rip into Mami's torso and she'd collapsed to the ground, right in front of Madoka -because they weren't trying to kill Walpurgis anymore, that had become an impossibility the moment they'd seen it for the first time and realized that no, they weren't ready for this, they'd just been trying to stay alive- it had been Homura who'd held back Madoka as she screamed and tried to run over to help, Madoka who wasn't a Puella Magi, who hadn't made the contract yet, who surely would have been killed just like Mami had been about to be, and as much as she despises Homura, at that moment Mami loved her.

Not as much as she loves Madoka, but love all the same.

And then Kyuubey appears and Madoka doesn't have to think twice, and suddenly Mami's wounds are knitting together and Madoka is a Puella Magi in a burst of pink light.

Kyuubey's unchanging expression has never looked so self-satisfied, but Homura's face turns an ashy gray that makes her blend in with the enormous chunk of cement behind her.

"Damn you, Tomoe," she spits, and the words drop from her lips like poison. "You don't know what you've done to Madoka, do you?"

Mami doesn't know, but she assumes Homura means putting Madoka in danger. She bristles. "Do you think I wanted Kaname-san to fight Walpurgis, Akemi? Why do you think I stopped her from doing this earlier?"

Homura's dropped the honorifics. She's angry, angrier than Mami's ever seen her before. But Mami is worried about Madoka, and worry is making her irritable. She's dropped the honorifics too, at least for Homura's name.

Homura's lip curls. "You don't know anything," she snarls, and fumbles for her shield, turning the knob with a deft, practiced twist of her fingers. With a flash of white light, she is gone, leaving Mami to stare in disbelief.

Kyuubey turns and begins to pad away, and Mami looks back up to Madoka, hovering in the air.

Madoka raises her bow, and fires. A beam of energy shoots from it like an arrow, hitting Walpurgis full on.

The Witch howls, thrashing, and Mami's breath catches in her throat. Madoka, looking regal and beautiful, lets loose another arrow, and then the Witch is gone, a grief seed falling from the sky.

A wide smile spreads across Mami's face. _They've done it._ It's over, Walpurgis Nacht has been destroyed, and she and Madoka can go home and eat cake in Mami's little apartment.

It's over.

And then Madoka turns and locks eyes with Mami, and there is something dark and terrified in her deep pink irises. She begins to shake, and then she's falling, falling, falling-

(_no._)

Mami runs, as if she can somehow reach Madoka in time to catch her in her arms. She can't.

Madoka hits the ground hard, sending up a mushroom cloud of dust and creating a crater in the cement. The shockwaves nearly make Mami stumble and lose her balance, but she keeps scrambling over broken bits of the city she'd once called home until she's vaulting over the side of the crater and sliding down to kneel beside Madoka.

(_nononono._)

The pink-haired girl doesn't seem to have acquired too many injuries from her fall, other than the scrapes on her legs and a split lip. But her eyes are wide and vulnerable and scared, her hands are scrabbling at the ground and her mouth is open in a silent gasp of pain.

Her body is convulsing. The air swirling around them is heady with something dark and wicked, but Mami barely notices it. She pulls Madoka into her arms, hugs her close, but it doesn't help anything. Madoka's fingertips scratch against Mami's back, like she's trying to find purchase there but can't.

(_it's too late to find purchase anywhere now_.)

"Kaname-san, tell me what's going on." Mami feels as scared as Madoka looks. This can't be happening. Not now, not to Madoka. She doesn't know what's going on but she wants it to stop, wants this to be a bad dream, wants to wake up in the morning and go to school and see Madoka and know that neither of them are going to die for a long, long time.

"I don't know," Madoka chokes out. She's breathing fast, but every breath she takes in is heavy and labored. "I don't know what's happening to me. I-It hurts, Mami-sempai. It hurts a lot."

"Kaname-san, listen to me," says Mami desperately. She holds Madoka by the shoulders, tries to sound convincing and not like a scared little girl lying in the aftermath of a car wreck. "Kaname-san, you're not going to die. You're not going to leave me, not now, not like this. Madoka!"

(_informal first names, this time it feels right and close and intimate, not like with homura, rude and nasty and spiteful_.)

Mami says Madoka's name like a prayer, but whatever god she's praying to just isn't coming through. Madoka's body is feverishly hot, and she isn't even trying to stay quiet anymore: her gasps and whimpers of pain are all that Mami can hear, and it hurts, and Mami is _scared,_ so very scared.

Madoka's pupils are wide and dilated, her face unnaturally pale. She makes a terrified gesture to her throat, and then Mami sees it.

Her soul gem is pitch black and starting to crack.

Mami fumbles for a grief seed. She has one on her, but when she presses it to Madoka's soul gem it doesn't do anything.

(_please don't leave me._)

"I like it when you call me by my first name," says Madoka with just the barest hint of a smile through the tears. She gives a painful shudder. "You should do that more often, Mami-sempai."

Somehow that feels worse than anything else that Madoka could have said, because Mami isn't deluding herself anymore, Madoka is dying.

(_more often is never going to happen._)

Mami chokes back a sob and realizes she's crying. She hadn't noticed. She opens her mouth, sees Madoka's eyes fluttering shut. "Mado-"

(_don't go._)

The soul gem cracks.

And everything goes dark.

.

**two**

Mami comes to with a start, her hands digging into the green grass that lines the meadow floor and her eyes blinking blearily as she tries to adjust to the sunlight.

There is dirt on her hands and underneath her fingernails. She sits up and wipes her hands on her school uniform. Everything looks weirdly vivid to her tired eyes: the grass is greener than green, the sky is bluer than blue. It's almost like one of those dreams where you see everything in sharp definition but when you wake up you can only recall it in soft tinges of sleepy orange.

"Paradise," says an all too familiar voice from behind her, and Mami whirls around. She feels an overwhelming sensation of disorientation, because this shouldn't be happening. Because this girl died in her arms, because this makes no sense-

"Madoka?"

The girl has pink hair and pale skin, almond shaped eyes with dark pink irises. She can't be Madoka. Madoka is dead, just like everyone else.

But that smile. It is unmistakable. And yet…

It is Madoka but it isn't. The softness of her face, the pink of her hair curling against the nape of her neck, the curve of her lips and the lashes of her eyes, there is no question that those are Madoka. But the blankness in those eyes and the way that those lips quirk up like they're being pulled up with strings, _that_ is not Madoka.

The Madoka who is not Madoka sees her looking and immediately she is smiling sunnily. It still doesn't come out quite right but Mami feels more at ease, even though this is all _wrong, wrong, wrong._

"This is paradise," says the Madoka who is not Madoka and yet _is_. She is close enough for Mami to see every flutter of the lashes lining her eyes, her fragile collarbones and the milky white of her skin. She is still smiling that terrible, wonderful smile, and Mami doesn't know what to say. "Paradise, Mami-sempai. Isn't it beautiful? No more suffering. No more pain."

Mami knows that this is not Madoka, because the girl that was Madoka is dead, has to be dead. Mami watched her, held her as she convulsed and whimpered, looked into her eyes even when they both knew that it was the end, and that can't have been a lie. But-

If this is Madoka, then that didn't happen. Then Madoka is not dead. Then that ache deep in the center of her chest can go away, because _Madoka is not dead._

And there is nothing that Mami wants more than for Madoka not to be dead.

It is a feeble resolve, fragile as glass and spawned by suffering and the endless knowledge that _we're going to die, Madoka and I, there is no happy ending for us._

Deep down Mami knows that this is not Madoka. But pretending is good enough for now.

"It's wonderful, Madoka," says Mami, and Madoka gives a giggle that could sound right if Mami tries hard enough, and at that moment Mami is trying very hard.

(_if she tries hard enough and wishes, just like that, then, maybe, just maybe-_)

And Madoka is suddenly Madoka and they are alone in paradise together.

Madoka holds out a hand and offers a smile. "Mami-sempai? Do you want to explore with me?"

It's an innocent smile, innocent and happy and kind (_not_). It makes Mami's breath catch in her throat and her heart skip a beat.

She takes the proffered hand and smiles in return. Madoka's hand is pleasantly cool in hers (_no, it's deathly cold, like the hand of a corpse_). "There's nothing I'd like more."

She pretends that she doesn't see the emptiness in Madoka's eyes or the way her limbs are stiff even as she pulls them both forwards.

.

**three**

They wander together, through fields of flowers without a single blemish on their petals in the height of full bloom and past vast lakes of water so clear that you can see right to the perfectly evenly shaped stones resting at the bottom, rows and rows of glossy black pebbles. Madoka is right, it _is _beautiful.

There are mountains tipped with powdery, unmelting snow, and canyons where every crag and rock is flawless in its formation. There are lush valleys of flowering trees and immense deserts of golden sand that stretch on and on to infinity, beaches with palm trees and placid blue-green waters, and they walk for what seems like forever and only an instant at the same time. They say nothing as they walk. Mami is content with the feel of Madoka's hand in hers, with seeing Madoka's face every time she turns her head. It is more than she'd ever dared ask for.

There is no whispering of the wind here, no rustle of leaves and no splash of water. There is almost no sound at all, save that of their footsteps on the ground.  
It is like this place is as timeless as it is endless, and Mami knows she should be afraid but she isn't, because she could never be afraid with Madoka holding her hand.

But still. Paradise is as strange and terrifying as it is lovely, and to Mami the only thing anchoring her is Madoka. Without Madoka there, she'd probably have run away. Or fallen into the depths of insanity. Or both.

And even with Madoka holding her hand every step of the way, there is something off about this paradise. Like someone tried to create the ideal world but made a mistake. Not a glaringly obvious mistake, but a mistake all the same, and there is definitely something wrong here.

But does it even matter? Madoka is by her side. She is content with that.

And yet... this is wrong. This is so very, very wrong.

Mami thinks it's cruel, really, that even now, when she is the happiest she's ever been in her life, there is something strange and not right about it all, and it gnaws at her heart like a hungry caterpillar would gnaw at an apple.

There is nothing in the clear blue sky. Not single cloud or even the sun, just vast expanses of blue, like it had been stitched up there into place because that was just something that someone thought that the sky should be, but _wasn't_, really.

And there is no life but for the plants and two girls walking on and on to who knows where, and even the plants don't feel quite right, more like a plastic imitation than the real thing.

But it doesn't matter, Mami tells herself. Madoka is by her side, and she is content with that.

They approach the center of the peculiar imperfect perfect world. Mami can feel it like a chill that penetrates right to the bone marrow, and it makes her feel very, very cold.

But Madoka's hand is in hers (_why is it so cold_) and so she keeps walking.

It feels like days have past. Or maybe only minutes. Regardless, they walk on and on, the ethereal light from nowhere catching on the flaxen gold of Mami's hair and the dark pupils in the centers of Madoka's eyes.

And then, when they have reached the epicenter of that odd (_sinister_) feeling-

They stop.

This part of the world is not as beautiful as the rest of it but just as strange and subtly menancing, maybe even more so.

The long grass they stand in is sharp-edged and feels like greasy plastic to the touch. The sunless, moonless sky is darker here, no longer a clear cerulean but more of a dusky indigo. The trees are twisted and gnarled, rising into the air like the wizened hands of some demon, trapped in the earth and reaching out for the sky. Mami understands that, knows what it's like to be forever reaching out for something you can never quite grasp.

But now she can, can't she?

She ignores that niggling little feeling of something being off that resides deep in her gut.

"Mami," says Madoka. Her voice is pitched lower than it usually is, breathy, and her eyelids flicker closed briefly before opening. "Do you love me?"

It's a heart-stopping question, something that Mami never thought she'd hear. She sucks in a deep breath -and even the air here tastes odd, heavy and oppressive but at the same time with a wild kind of freedom to it- and whispers, "Yes. More than anything."

And Madoka smiles prettily, and says, "Will you stay with me? Forever?"

Mami nods, unable to even breathe anymore. "Forever and always."

And Madoka leans in and kisses her, gently, a butterfly kiss really, her hands tracing the nape of Mami's neck and slipping down to rest in the small of her back. Her lips are soft and fleeting on Mami's, her hands gentle and without calluses.

Her lips are also very, very cold, and there is something wrong with her flesh, not soft and warm but cold and clammy and-

Mami pulls her close and shakes away any doubts.

.

**four**

Time passes in the same way that it always seems to here, sometimes trickling away like viscous honey, sometimes rushing by like a leaf tossed over a waterfall, sometimes not moving at all.

And slowly Madoka begins to grind to a stop, like a windup toy with all the gears inside broken.

First it's only the fingers. One day Mami tries to take her hand and Madoka can't interlink her fingers with Mami's, can't even move them. She doesn't seem to mind, though, just regards them with that curious nothingness in her eyes.

After the fingers, it's the whole hand. Then the toes and the feet go, and-

Mami is too afraid to think of what comes next.

(_rigor mortis, it's what happens to a corpse after death, you're lucky she lasted this long.)_

There is something very, very wrong.

And yet-

And yet. Mami can't bring herself to leave.

Because she's never _had _this before, never been able to hold Madoka like this before, and even if she knows it isn't really Madoka she's holding (_or it is but someone else is holding the strings)_, it's still almost too much to bear. She still doesn't know where she is, what this world is, why she's here.

She's almost not sure she cares.

And then, one day, she says to Madoka, "Do you remember outside? Homura and Sayaka and Kyouko?"

Mami isn't sure why she does it. She knows, knows that asking that question means the end, and she knows that Madoka who isn't Madoka knows it too.

Madoka who isn't Madoka turns to her, confusion twisting her face but not quite reaching her eyes. "What do you mean? I don't know anyone named anything like that."

And that is when the knife that's been buried in Mami's chest for a long, long time now finally twists, and it hurts more than anything she's ever felt before, even more than watching Madoka die the first time.

Because Madoka would _never _forget any of her friends.

And this is not Madoka. Or at least, it's not Madoka anymore.

Mami finally lets her eyes rest on the shattered black gem in between the Madoka who isn't Madoka's fragile collarbones and the rot that's starting to creep in at the tips of her fingers and up her neck. Madoka Kaname has been dead for a long time now. She lets herself transform reflexively and feels the weight of a musket in her right hand. It's almost a relief, after all this time.

It's also the hardest thing that she's ever had to do. Mami holds the gun to the base of the Madoka who isn't Madoka's throat and tightens her finger on the trigger.

The girl with the pink hair smiles in a way that's almost sad. Her eyes are still blank. "Are you going to shoot me, Mami-sempai? Do you think you can?"

Mami meets her eyes, and it hurts so _goddamn _much, and she can feel tears stinging at her own eyes and a tightness in her chest. "I love you, Madoka. More than anything."

She pulls the trigger.

Madoka goes down like a sack of bricks, but they both know that she was dead before the bullet even touched her. The creature behind her, the Witch playing the cruelest of games, shrieks in fury and lunges forward.

Mami shoots it six times in a row. Kriemhild Gretchen howls in pain and Mami knows it's as good as dead, because this witch is weaker than any witch she's ever fought before but more powerful than even Walpurgis Nacht at the same time.

How do you fight something that gives you your deepest desire and uses it to twist you around its little finger?

Then she stops and even though she knows she shouldn't, kneels by Madoka. The girl (_deadbodypuppetcorpseshutupshutup)_ smiles weakly at her, and the blood is pouring out of the hole right between her collarbones but she still clutches at Mami with bloodstained fingers.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, and Mami knows this is impossible but she wants to believe this is real so badly even if she knows it's probably just another illusion cast by the dying Witch, a final trick to give itself time to heal. "I never got to tell you how much I love you, did I? Maybe, if this had all never happened-"

And Mami lets the tears run down her cheeks, finally, and pulls Madoka into her arms and hugs her tight. Madoka speaks no more.

"I love you too," she whispers back. "More than anything, forever and always."

Then she shoots Kriemhild Gretchen again for good riddance.

.

**five**

Kriemhild Gretchen's barrier melts away, the imperfect perfect world fading back into the ruined wasteland that is Mitakihara Town and the bleak gray sky high above.

Somewhere, buried in the broken cement and shards of shattered glass, is the body -no, the corpse, might as well be honest about it- of Sayaka Miki. Maybe, when the people come back and dig through the rubble, they'll find it. Maybe they'll give the body to some relatives from out of town. They won't find the body of Kyouko Sakura, because that was blown up in a desperate attempt to fend off the swarms of hungry familiars of Walpurgis Nacht.

Kyouko has no living relatives, anyway.

And Homura Akemi, of course, vanished without a trace.

But Mami Tomoe, kneeling in the center of the destruction and clutching a broken body to her chest as the tears stream down her cheeks and she sobs isn't thinking of Kyouko or Homura or Sayaka.

She's thinking of Madoka Kaname, and what could have been.

And then, when she's all cried out and there's nothing left but a horrible emptiness in the center of her being and the redness around her eyes and nose, she slips off the ring on the middle finger of her left hand and picks up a piece of cement the size of her fist.

(_smash._)

.

**zero**

"Madoka," says the girl with the flaxen hair as she sets down her teacup. She reaches out and runs her fingers along the other girl's cheek. The girl with the pink hair giggles. "Madoka, I love you. You know that, right?"

The girl with the pink hair leans over the table with a smile, taking the blonde girl's hands and pressing them to the place on her chest where her heart is. "I know, Mami. I love you too."


End file.
